


Love refers to unrequited feelings

by Hieiandshino



Series: What is love? [13]
Category: Avengers (Comics), Avengers Academy, Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, Developing Relationship, F/M, Gen, I love Pietro/Warbird, Implied Relationships, Interspecies Relationship(s), M/M, Multi, Past Relationship(s), really want to write them together, same as Peter/Danny, think of peter and danny together but they joke it doesn't seem real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 18:22:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2860637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hieiandshino/pseuds/Hieiandshino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Warbird — and what kind of a name is that? — turns to him and touches his arm from where she is standing in an intimate gesture to make Pietro get up and give her more ice cream. Pietro complies instantly, finishing his own ice cream before following Warbird to the counter.<br/>Oh $#@$, Pietro has a</i> girlfriend.</p>
<p>(30 Day OTP Challenge, Day Thirteen: Eating ice cream. Unrevised work)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love refers to unrequited feelings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DuendeJunior](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuendeJunior/gifts).



> Marvel (all media types) does not belong to me.
> 
> Link for the quote of the title: [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex-girlfriend). 
> 
> Spoilers from _Secret Invasion_ , _Avengers Academy #38_ , _New Avengers_ (regarding Danny and Peter's proximity). Set after the _Avengers vs The X-Men_ , on the comics, and after parts 1, 4, 5 and 8 of this series.
> 
> This fanfic was unrevised and, because my first language isn't English, there will be mistakes. As soon as I have the revised work, I'll edit it. Besides, I just finished this fanfic and didn't revise at all -- I'll do it only in one week because the text is still fresh in my mind. Please forgive all the horrible mistakes.

Jessica likes ice cream the best and Clint may be falling in love with her for it. She knows this place that keeps open twenty-four seven because superheroes are people too and everyone likes ice cream. Sometimes, Spider-Man and she go, but, most of the times, its Carol and her. “And now you and me.” She says with a charming smile that makes the day better. She must be the nicest girl around, and Clint is glad they are dating. Jessica kind of flies around the sky, never too far away from Clint’s bike, and she is always, always looking around for the people. Sometimes she even flies really up to see if there is trouble she can’t see so close the ground. Today, for their lucky, there isn’t.

Clint never goes in too many dates, but he is glad they normally go well. Today, it seems like one of these days, he thinks, and he is happy for it: Jess is the kind of girl that deserves normal dates with the dude that throws arrows to his enemies. It’s the only normalcy they’ll ever get. Except she stops at the entry of the parlor and doesn’t move for a few seconds. Clint senses the trouble and draws an arrow from his quiver. A fight and some ice cream isn’t so bad for a date either; Nat and he did plenty of that when they were together ( _again_ ).

“Jess?” He asks and comes closer. Jess turns to him, as if not knowing what to do and Clint has no idea what is happening right now. Until he too looks inside the ice cream parlor and his eyes meet with Pietro Maximoff’s. He is eating ice cream. And with a woman Clint is sure he has seen before. Pietro looks as much surprised as Clint and Jess are, while the woman — that Clint is _sure_ he has seen her before — eats her own ice cream without noticing the commotion. Or lack of it. He doesn’t know what to call, in fact.

It’s when the woman finishes eating her ice cream that the silence is broken. She gets up from the table they are sitting — she is wearing black jeans and a male t-shirt that Clint is pretty sure it belongs to Pietro. Her white long hair is in what once was a braid, what means she ran to here or drove a motorcycle. Clint can’t exactly say where he met her, but he knows she wasn’t looking this normal — and turns to Pietro: “I demand another.”

Pietro looks up to her and the horrible silence is over. Jess smiles awkwardly at Pietro and guides Clint to the counter so they can choose their ice cream, even though Clint doesn’t want it anymore. He looks at where Pietro and the woman are and he wonders if they are dating; if they are serious about each other. He is kind of jealous, he has to admit — even though he likes Jess, Pietro and he ran circles around each other for so long and that ended on a make out session and a horrible date on Central Park. The fact that this woman seems so comfortable around him means that— Wait a minute— _Make out_ —

“I know you!” He says suddenly, turning to the love birds on the table. They both look up. “You’re the Shi’ar from the X-Men!” The one Pietro made out behind the benchers when the X-Men came to the Academy.

The woman looks at him, her eyes piercing his, before she checks Clint out and makes a disappointed sound. Next to her, Pietro chokes on his ice cream and tries in vain to hold a smirk. Clint gulps and blushes; she really does know how to make a guy feel special, huh?

Jess, who was totally ignoring them, sighs and turns to Clint. “Yep. Warbird, right?”

“That is my name.” She agrees and nods at Jess, ignoring Clint. Pietro steals a glance at Clint before he takes another bite from his ice cream and turns to her. “You said you wanted another, did you not?”

Warbird — and what kind of a name is that? — turns to him and touches his arm from where she is standing in an intimate gesture to make Pietro get up and give her more ice cream. Pietro complies instantly, finishing his own ice cream before following Warbird to the counter.

Oh $#@$, Pietro has a _girlfriend_.

The woman behind the counter tenses when Warbird asks her the flavors, she stammers a little and Pietro can’t fight back a smile. Jerk. “Why you do not take a little from every flavor?” Every person inside the parlor looks at him. “I am paying; you can do that.”

“Hello, Mr. Generous.” Jessica mutters and smiles when Pietro looks at her. “You sure do know how to make a girl feel special, giving her ice cream and all that.”

“I am trying to help.” Pietro explains and seems satisfied Warbird decided to make good use of his money. “She never ate ice cream before.”

Jess makes a horrified sound that makes Clint smiles and says: “ _Blasphemy_!” Then, she ignores her boyfriend and helps Warbird choose because, apparently, pistachio is no ice cream but a devil in disguise of disgusting green. What means Clint only source of conversation is Pietro.

Well, talk about awkward.

Pietro doesn’t seem to care. Actually, he is a lot more comfortable than normal. He has this almost relaxed expression that matches Warbird’s. They clearly don’t trust each other, but you don’t need to trust someone to $#%@ the %#$% out of them. Like they seem to be doing.

Clint then remembers the kiss, the way Pietro started calling himby his first name, and thinks that, if he didn’t have Bobbi and Natasha and Jessica and Osborn to worry about at the time they made out before Pietro went off to see his ex-wife, they would have gotten together. Pietro and he, he means. Probably. He kind of hopes so.

“I didn’t know you liked ice cream.” He blurts out, suddenly. Pietro looks at him, lifting one of his eyebrows. Clint can _taste_ the sarcastic answer: “Yes, because I am a monster from outer space who clearly does not like anything good or delicious.”

“Well—” Clint starts, and he knows this isn’t a good idea, but as if he would leave Pietro with the last sarcastic word. “—I am pretty sure the Grinch is from Earth.”

Pietro opens his mouth to answer him, really, but then stops himself for a moment. He then says: “I was not expecting Spider-Woman and you.”

Clint freezes for a moment. “Here?” He tries.

“As a couple.”

“Oh. _Right_. Well, it kinda happened. It’s the real Jess, though, not some alien impersonator.” Clint says helpfully and Pietro looks at him with a mix of confusion and shame — for Clint or for Jess, he has no idea.

Warbird and Jess pass by them taking their ice cream to a table and they sit together. Jess seems to be describing the delicious sensations one’s have when they eat ice cream and Clint is kind of mortified he’s officially on a double date with Pietro and they are not leaving together later.

Not that he wants that. _Much_. He likes Jess after all, _but Pietro_.

Clint knows things will end pretty bad, sooner or later.

“It matters not.” Warbird says, louder than she has been talking. She has a raspy, sexy voice, that captures Pietro’s whole attention immediately. She must be Wanda’s least favorite girl in the world. “Quicksilver and I will not be here long.”

Quicksilver. _What the %#$%?_ Not even calling him by his name, she does it. Clint glances at Pietro, who soon turns to the woman on the counter and asks for a pistachio ice cream, for now, he underlines. These two are _so_ weird.

“What about you?” The woman asks, still nervous, and Clint smiles at her, reassuring she won’t get hurt, even though there are two Avengers ( _three?_ ) and two X-Men ( _one alien X-Men and a mutant, on a date? Pietro is so hard to define_ ) and their conflict is still recent on everyone’s minds. “I want strawberry, please.”

Pietro snorts by his side and waits for Clint to get his order before moving. It’s weird, all this. The last time they were this close and alone, they made out fiercely. And now here he is, with a woman that calls him by his nickname. It must be weird when they have sex. Quicksilver and Warbird aren’t nice names to call when one comes, though Clint barely believes they say anything at all during sex. And that is the moment his mind is nice enough to remember Clint that, if Pietro and he were dating, they would call each other by their names during sex. By their _first_ names. And it would be awesome. And hot. Clint bites his ice cream, trying to not think of that right now. It doesn’t take much for him to regret this choice, because he soon feels his tongue cold and stiff and has to wait for a moment to start licking at the sweet again.

They sit one across each other, right next to their respectively date, because otherwise it would be weird, and stay quiet for a moment. Pietro watches Warbird as she eats her own ice cream — flavors Clint doesn’t recognize by color —, munching proudly and childishly. Pietro is half done with his ice cream, and he obviously is no fun at all, preferring to use a plastic cup than a scone, this time. Clint, however, thinks it’s very Pietro-ish and that it makes perfect sense. Seeing him eating anything like a fun person is the same as ignore the fact Pietro eats _doughnuts_ with knife and fork, so it fits him to be all boring and all that. He probably at the first one on a scone to show Warbird she could eat it too, besides the ice cream on top.

Meanwhile, it says a lot about Clint the fact that Jessica needs to slap him to get his attention, but when she starts talking, Pietro opens his mouth to address the Sh’iar and Clint is already interested on what he will say. They should have gone to another place to have some ice cream. “Did you enjoy any particular flavor?”

Warbird lists the names of the flavors she liked and said she would taste all the ones Jess cited, to begin with. “She is, after all, a mighty warrior, even though she lacks on the taste on men.”

And Jess should be angered, should be offended, but she turns to Clint, who is blushing, and laughs at his face. He answers by shoving his ice cream on her nose and she immediately shivers at the contact. “ _Jerk_.” She says, playfully, and smacks him again before running to the counter to ask for some water to help clean her face. Clint laughs at the way she tries not to drop ice cream on the floor. Warbird seems amused by this, even curious, but she finishes her ice cream as fast as she can, and moves to go after Jess. Pietro watches her intently. “She is bounding.”

“What?”

“Warbird. She is bounding with Spider-Woman.” He explains.

“Over ice cream?” Clint asks.

“Apparently.” He says, and goes on eating his own ice cream. Pietro almost looks as if he is bored, but Clint knows he is looking at Clint’s fingers drumming on the table. The silence is a horrible thing, though it’s more comfortable than the first one of the night. Yet, Clint is capable of humiliating himself by starting a conversation: “So, _uhhh_ —”, what is a very pathetic try and he decides that shutting up would be a good idea.

“Yes?” Pietro asks after sparing a second to look at Clint’s face, trying to read him before asking. He obviously fails in discover Clint’s intention, but accomplishes in making Clint blush by his own stupid idea.

“Nothing, I just… Didn’t expect you two.”

“Oh. Well, Warbird happened to not be doing anything today and so she came to me. Rachel Grey mentioned something about ice creams and she did not know what that was. Unable to answer it properly, I thought it would be a good idea to present it to her.”

“The ice cream here is great. Or so I’ve heard”. Clint manages to say, and it’s a bless he isn’t flinching at Pietro’s casual tone as he details the facts of why he is on a date with Warbird. Clint actually meant he didn’t expect them, together, even if it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Pietro isn’t the most charming and popular guy around ( _though he is popular and charming on Clint’s head_ ), but that doesn’t mean people don’t find him attractive. And if he was able to find a girl to marry once, he would find another eventually. Just like Clint would.

Preferably not Wanda.

“You should get another.” Pietro says, motioning with his head to the counter where Jessica and Warbird still are. Clint nods but doesn’t move. He still wants to understand how Pietro gets along with this weird woman long enough to go on dates with her and how she found him—hell, _he_ doesn’t know where Pietro lives.

All Clint can remember about them, besides the make out session, is how, in a second, Pietro and Warbird started a mother %#$%ing hurricane. Hank later explained it was because of their velocity; they are so fast the human eye can’t grasp entirely what they are doing — just parts of it. It makes Clint wonder how it would be to have the same speed as Pietro. Is he really that fast? Is it the world so slow the speedsters only stop for a few persons? Kate once ran in the arms of Tommy Shepherd and she said it was the best feeling in the world, but Clint doesn’t want to be led, or carried. He wants to be there, as an equal, at the same speed; at the same damn page as Pietro Maximoff.

Maybe that is why they don’t work out. Or maybe that is what he says to himself that because, shit, he is a %$@& when it comes to relationships.

_Oh God, what am I thinking?_ He actually is trying to understand Pietro Maximoff by using _what ifs_ and why is New York so calm? He needs some action, even if to just run away from this ice cream parlor in a way that is not screaming like a girl, afraid of her own feelings.

Clint looks down, for a moment, and notices one of Pietro’s hands is on the table, as if forgotten, as he eats his ice cream. He admires the bone structure, the way his fingers are splayed against a wooden table, making it look like cob webs and he suddenly has to close his hand on a fist. He wants to touch Pietro’s hand, just like he wants to ask how it is to see the world through Pietro’s eyes, or how it was his life as a romani, before he joined his father and then the Avengers — only to tell Pietro how was life on the circus. He wants so many things, so many answers, so much of Pietro that Clint doesn’t really understand why they are not together right now.

Jessica and Warbird are still talking by the counter, choosing together more flavors, but Pietro’s hand is free and in front of him, so Clint makes up his mind. His fingers skimmer through the table, slowly making their way to the hand spread on the pale wooden table, and it’s so close and Pietro isn’t pulling away, and he’s got to have noticed Clint’s intentions and it’s just a touch, just a touch and hell, sweet hell, will be by his door, because—

“—Well, is this a date party?” Spider-Man’s voice breaks the moment and Clint hides his hand under the table, jumping at the sudden interruption. Pietro looks at the place his hand was, so near his own, and seems to harden his eyes, before turning to Peter. Clint wants to say ‘sorry’, wants to apologize for being a jerk, but Peter keeps talking: “Good for me, I’m not alone!”

And then Iron Fist enters, closing his cell phone and stopping at the door to assert what he is looking: Warbird and Jessica by the counter, looking at them with interest; and Clint and Pietro at the table, looking at then, one surprised, the other coldly.

“I thought you two hated each other.” Danny says, looking at Clint’s proximity with Pietro, who just sneers.

“We tolerate each other, it’s different.” He answers Iron Fist, and his voice is so hard, so cold, and %$#$, Clint really is a jerk. Also, he is &%$#%.

Danny seems to notice his tone, because his mask goes up together with one of his eyebrows and he says: “O- _kay_. Hawkeye. Hi, Pietro.” Clint looks at Pietro, who just nods and shakes hand with Danny and _what the hell_. They worked, like, _once_ together and yet Pietro is nice to _him_? Clint is a jerk, yes, but Pietro is an ass, truth be told. “I’m gonna get more ice cream.” Clint says and Danny looks at Pietro to see what he did wrong. When Pietro just makes a dismissive movement with one of his hands, Clint wishes to eliminate everything he just thought about Pietro until this moment.

Pietro _obviously_ follows him, throwing his own cup of ice cream on the garbage can before walking with Danny to the counter. Danny sees the quantity of ice cream Warbird has on her hands and makes conversation, giving his own opinion when he notices Jess is helping her choose ice cream, leaving Peter, Clint and Pietro all by themselves.

Same Peter who turns to them and says, as he pulls his mask up so he can talk better and eat ice cream at the same time. “ _So_.” He starts. “Didn’t know you two were a couple.”

Pietro and Clint don’t even blink before answering: “We’re not.”

“Uh—” Peter starts. “I was talking about Pietro and the fierce alien, there.”

“Oh.” They both say at the same time and glance at each other — a movement that catches Peter’s attention. He looks at Pietro, and then at Clint, and then at Pietro again and falls silent. The fact this is Peter Parker and the guy doesn’t _stay quiet_ means that something’s _off_.

“Oh.” Peter says. “ _Oh_.” And, hell, Clint has a bad feeling about that. “Well, I sure don’t know what to do with this information.”

“There is no information.” Pietro mumbles, blushing a little. “There is only what you think it happened between us.”

“And what happened?”

“ _Nothing_.” And Pietro says, so sure of what he is saying that it makes Clint angry. So, okay, they just kissed, like, _once_ , and they had those weird dates that weren’t exactly dates, but something _happened_ between them. Or something _is_ happening. Clint means, they were teammates for a good while, then shit happened a lot of times, everyone died at least once, Pietro and Clint kissed, all Clint’s previous girlfriends came back to his life at once and now they help teenage kids to not become super villains. That’s _progress_.

And, okay, they seem to have moved on _physically_ — Clint stresses this word because it’s _important_ —, but they are still there; not exactly on the same page, but still on the same book ( _or publisher, if Deadpool is to be believed_ ). Anyway, they get together sometimes in non-romantic situations to save the world and teach kids how to be better, so one should forgive Clint for feeling a little _offended_. He only hopes that it’s not showing in his face, because, by the noise Peter makes, he doesn’t believe Pietro at all.

Thanks to all the gods out there, the woman turns to them tiredly, because superheroes seem to be having an eating marathon on her parlor, and asks what they will have. When Pietro is about to say what flavor he wants, Warbird calls from the table. “I chose enough for both of us.” She says and Danny almost drops his ice cream. Peter totally drops his and asks for another before even leaving the counter.

“Oh, well, this is a new level of commitment I see here.” Peter says, half mocking, and maybe he is right.

“There is?” Warbird says, surprised. “Is sharing this sweet a social standard to start a relationship?”

“Yes.” Jessica says, and then corrects herself, because _bad_ _idea_. “Kinda. Not really. I don’t… Know? ” She stops, bites her lips and looks at Clint so he can help her. He shrugs, before trying to amend things: “Spidey’s just messing with you. Because you two are kind of reserved, so sharing something like food sounds weird when it comes from you.” And he is totally talking about Pietro here.

Pietro, who is actually eating Warbird’s ice cream, only lifts an eyebrow at everyone and leans in to whisper something at her ear. She smirks immediately and nods. They finish eating all the ice cream in silence, sometimes giving their opinion in something Clint or the others say. Clint notices they are eating faster than they should be and jealousy settles in again on his whole body. He knows that soon Pietro will pay and they will leave and have hot, wild, codename naming sex, and Clint will be stuck with the other three before Jess and he leave the parlor.

It is exactly as he predicts and Clint gets more ice cream to settle the uncomfortable feeling that it could have been Clint there with Pietro, instead of Warbird, if he had just tried to wait for Pietro and denied his attraction for Jess.

The four of them stay silence for a moment, everyone thinking Pietro is going to getting laid anytime now — hell, he could have already done it, since they are both so fast. Danny mumbles something Clint doesn’t grasp, but that makes Peter nod, and Jessica murmurs about losing her appetite. Clint feels her, though his feelings towards it are completely different. He looks at Jess, that is smirking at the fake-flirt between Danny and Peter, and knows they won’t last long. Not anymore.

**First version: 04/17/2013 — 05/04/2013**

**Second version (same plot): 12/26/2014**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this took a while. Even though I wrote this one year ago, I didn't like the result at all. So I decided to write something else with this prompt. I wrote so many different versions that I kinda fell into despair -- that is why I posted prompt 14 before I posted this one. In the end, I had to come back to the original plot, because that was what I really wanted to write about: Clint and Pietro on a double date, not dating each other.
> 
> I changed a lot of things, but Peter, Danny, Ava'Dara and Jess stayed because I couldn't write this without writing them. I just love them so much and hope to keep writing with them, not only as characters that are part of this series.
> 
> And by the way, I know the prompts are just 30, but I noticed I can't just stop writing them when there's so much happening in their lives right now. Bear with me; this will be a _long_ series. Hope you enjoy the ride!


End file.
